Are You an Israelite Christian or a Christ-Like Christian?

I say a really good speaker can fit his sermon in the time. Unfortunately, I'm not a really good speaker. Try to be. I really enjoyed the ordination. My congratulations. Wonderful. This church has produced a lot of really good people.

And that's a sign of the congregation and the members here. And I'm sure God is pleased with all that. I enjoyed hearing my daughter sing. She was a walking musical, this little girl. I miss that. I'm sure she still sings in California, but I don't get to hear that. And our new granddaughter, I think, is going to be the same.

She's already trying to sing at four months. So hopefully she'll sing more than she cries. That'll make it nice. It's always good to grow up in the church and expect to be the last generation, and then another generation comes along, and then another generation, and I'm going to get to die before Christ returns. Which I certainly never planned to do that when I started out as a child of three.

Last week I was listening to the radio on the way home. I usually have it on one of the Christian stations because some of the music there is a lot better to listen to than others. But there was a preacher talking, and he's a gifted preacher. I've heard him before, and knows the Scriptures fairly well. But it's the first time I ever heard him explain why he doesn't keep the Sabbath and Passover and the days that we keep. Most of them don't talk about it much, but he talked about the fact that people had come to him and said, don't you know that Catholics did that and the Council of Nicaea and 325 AD, and that the Pope made Sunday and everything?

And so these people, they come to me and they challenge me on this. But I don't have to look into that that much because for 200 years before the Council of Nicaea, it had already been established the church was keeping Sunday. Interesting. Tying you to Passover and Easter that the church did the church for 200 years keep Sunday? Well, I'm sure certain Christians, quote-unquote, did and other Christians didn't. And while I would agree that some of those people did keep Sunday, by the mid-100 ADs or so, they had turned to another gospel.

That's what it talks about. But there's clear evidence there was a rift in the church in the first century and second and third as it went along. People of God have always had to fight for the truth, the fight to keep these days as others change them, as others turn to a different gospel or change the law of God to fit the pick and choose law of God that they wanted. Eusebius, who was a historian in the late second century, wrote a book called The Early History of the Church and the Ecclesiastical History, he wrote.

It was interesting because he was a real scholar, but he recognized him with that. But I'd like to read a little bit of what he said. It's on page 209 if you bought Eusebius with you, which I doubt you did. In Ecclesiastical History, in the volume I had, he says this, and this is around 300 or so AD. It says, I, therefore, am now sixty-five, and I am the eighth, and my relatives always observed the day when the people, that is the Jews, threw away the leaven.

I, therefore, am now sixty-five years in the Lord, who, having conferred with and am not at all alarmed at those things which I am threatened to intimidate me, for they who are greater than I have said we ought to obey God rather than men. The brethren throughout the world, having studied the sacred Scriptures, know this. And after this he also proceeds to write concerning all the bishops that were present, and thought the same of himself. Upon this, Victor, the bishop of the Church of Rome, forthwith endeavored to cut off the churches of Asia, together with the neighboring churches as heretics among the common unity of the western church.

And he published abroad letters and proclamations that brethren from Asia were to be wholly excommunicated by the church. So we see in the first century, yeah, there were some keeping Sunday, but the people who were trying to keep fast to what the apostles taught and what Christ taught and what God had taught and given thousands of years before were excommunicated for trying to hold the truth.

But Lycraides made a strong defense for the Passover, for the Sabbath, and thus was excommunicated by those in Rome who had taken over. Periodically, people have had to defend the truths of God from people who had changed them. We did so as recently as 1995 in the church, in the modern era. We have those precious truths of God.

We know them. We hold fast to them. And yet so many are willing to give away these things so easily to do something to their own liking. We understand the truth. We take commandments, the feast, the plan of God. Most of you have done this for many years. If I look out and see the older among us, some of the new ones. Your first Passover is always very special. I remember mine. As you probably remember yours. And the night too much observed that we've had.

I remember those from my childhood before I was baptized. And all the various people along the way that we were with, some of whom have left. Some no longer keep these days or believe these things. I always enjoyed the nights with my family. The specialty, my wife and I had some really special Passovers with Mr. Armstrong years back. The most special Passover we ever had, we had with Jehan Sadat, the wife of the President of Egypt.

Which was quite interesting because Mr. Armstrong was there with her. She was staying at his house. He had invited her. She happened to come at Passover time. Mr. Armstrong called me up at 6 o'clock in the evening because we had 16 people coming to our house to have a great gathering.

He said, I don't know what to do. It's just her and me. I need you and Michelle. So at 6 o'clock we left our food there and put a note on the door and a key under the mat and told the people we wouldn't be there and left. Then had Passover with him and Jehan Sadat. They were the night too much reserved. And it was interesting because we talked about Moses. We talked about the Exodus, the plagues and things. Of course, she was well versed in those things as well. But it was a fascinating night too much reserved.

We keep the Passover and we keep the night too much reserved as Jesus did, as much as possible. Although I imagine the night too much reserved when Christ was crucified was a lot more sobering occasion than it had been with him the three years before that, when it was more joyous, celebrating coming out of Egypt. That night I imagined it was pretty sad for them to be there and not to have Christ with them, what they would do. Because we keep these days the same way that Christ did, the Apostles, the early church, it does give us the right to call ourselves true Christians. Israel, of course, was the church in the wilderness.

A few times along the way they managed to do things right. Unfortunately, in the 500 years of the history of the nation of Israel, they usually didn't do it right. They kept other things. They turned to other gods. We do what Christ said as He told us to do this in remembrance of Me. He called us friends if we do everything He taught, and so we do. So two nights ago we took the Passover as He taught, and last night we and others gathered in groups to observe the night too much observed, to celebrate coming out of Egypt out of sin, to turn our lives more toward God, our way of life. What does God want us to learn at this feast? What did He want Israel to learn when He gave them these feasts? Does the specialness of these feasts wear thin like it did for Israel? They never kept the feasts that often. Here are five times in the Old Testament it talks about the feast. It's interesting. I always wish Christ would come right after Passover. We'd all be nice and clean. This is probably the most spiritual audience I get to talk to. I've only had a couple days to mess up. It's always wonderful. Turn to Deuteronomy 6, if you would. Oftentimes we don't keep our contract with God the way we should, hopefully better than Israel did. Deuteronomy 6, Moses writing, trying to recount a lot of things that Israel did. He's a Bible-based Bible. He counts the Ten Commandments. Do it around in verse 4. We'll start there.

Moses says, The Lord our God is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. Same thing Christ quoted in Matthew 22 to the Pharisee. You've answered well. You should do those things. Verse 6, And these words which I command you this day shall be in your hearts, and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up.

God wanted Israel to create a culture of obedience and righteousness. I'm thankful I grew up in the church. My mom and my dad, my stepfather tried to inculcate all these things into us. We had Bible study at 5.30 in the morning, which I usually slept through. But I could listen to my sleep, which made my dad really irritated, because I'd always passed the test at the end of the week, and my brother and my mom, we stayed awake, never could. But that was me. But he wanted to create a culture, a culture that you understood this. It was part of you. It's what you did.

Verse 8, Now, we don't do that today in the same way that he said it there, but they're written on the gates of our heart. They're written on our mind. They're written as a way of life if we truly put this culture into our life, into what we do every day. How we treat each other, how we keep his laws, how we walk with him.

Verse 12, He says, Verse 17, Christ offered us eternity. Our good land isn't physical Israel. Our good land is the kingdom of God. And he's told us. He's preparing a place for us. If we hold fast. Verse 20, When your son asks you in the time to come, saying, What means the testimony in this statute and the judgments of the Lord? He says, Verse 20, When your son asks you in the time to come, saying, What means the testimony in this statute and the judgments of the Lord? Our God has commanded you. You shall tell your son. We were Pharaoh's bondmen in Egypt. And the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand. And the Lord showed signs and wonders and great and sore plagues upon Egypt and upon Pharaoh and upon all his household before our very eyes. And he brought us out from there, that he might bring us to give us the land which he swore to our fathers. And the Lord God commanded us to do these statues to fear him, the Lord our God, for our good always, that he might preserve us alive as it is this day.

We celebrated Christ's death because Christ, through his righteousness and the life he lived, makes it possible for us to have eternal life. The same promise only to the next level up. And everything God does is the next level up. But he gave us family and he gave us these days and things to understand. And Israel at times could force it physically, but they never seemed to understand it spiritually. How careful have you been with the law of God this past year? How careful will you be next year? Do you recognize the good things that you can do where God is? I read a story some time ago, a true story. It was actually on Pearl Harvey. He talked about a man who was in the subways of New York. He had a violin. He opened his case and laid it down and began playing. And as he was playing, people would walk by, kind of listen for a moment and go on. Some people would throw a few coins in or a few dollar bills. This one little boy was there fascinated by him. He'd never seen anybody play like this. He wanted to be there and his mom grabs him. No, no, get away. He kind of let go and ran back and she ran and grabbed him. And so he was just a street player. But he was really good. The little boy wanted to be there. Do we recognize God when he does things for us, when he sees us?

Israel was the church in the wilderness. God offered them something really good, something that would give them life. But they didn't really appreciate what he gave to them. They didn't really understand it. They wanted to be like the rest of the world, which is so easy to do and even easier in our society. I'd like to look back at the five historical Passovers that were celebrated, that we listed in the Old Testament, and see what they did and explore the accounts so we can learn about them and perhaps something about us being spiritual Israelites. In Exodus 12, we know that it was 430 years to the day that they left Egypt from the time of the sacrifice where Abraham was offering Isaac. God was getting his people's attention after years of slavery. They had lost sight of God. They had lost and quit practicing his holy days. They knew there was a God. They knew their ancestors a bit. Some of the things were passed down, but they had lost the feast. And now God was going to reestablish his relationship with them after bringing them out of Egypt. I'm sure as they were leaving Egypt, they didn't really understand. I'm sure there was a lot of fear involved. We read the story. We know what happened. We knew they'd be fed. We knew they'd be watered because we read those things. But they left Egypt with a mighty hand, but they had a lot of cattle and a lot of children and a lot of people. They marched out into the desert. And I'm sure in some ways you had to think, yeah, this is wonderful, but what are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? They had to have a certain amount of faith. And I'm sure there was a certain amount of fear among them, as we see. Moses and Aaron approached Pharaoh and told him, let my people go. And of course, Pharaoh was stubborn. Stubbornness, sin is stubborn usually. And it led to the plagues on Egypt and its destruction.

When we turn back to the world and we're stubborn, we can fall into those same problems that we've had in the past. As slaves, they had lost much of what they did know. They'd lost the Ten Commandments. They'd lost all the feast days. Other than the fact that they had a God who was supposed to deliver them. And God told Moses, I've heard the cries of my people.

But God now delivers the written record for us. Exodus 12, verse 11. When he tells them what they're supposed to do.

It's the start of God's holy days. And it talks about the Passover. Exodus 12, verse 11.

He says, And thus you shall eat it, with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, your staff in your hand. So shall you eat in haste. It's the Lord's Passover. God is separating righteousness from sin, life from death. The Passover was to be remembered as the beginning of a spiritual renewal and a relationship with God. Verse 12. For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast. And against all the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. God decides good and evil. He is truth. He's not politically correct. Often to be truthful.

But it's not about being politically correct. His word is truth. And the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. And this day shall be a memorial. You shall keep it as a feast to the Lord throughout your generations. You shall keep it as a feast by an everlasting ordinance. The Passover. We, when we take the blood and the bread, we symbolically put the blood on the doorstep so that God can pass over our sins through Christ's sacrifice and let us into His spiritual land. Passover has always been a time of spiritual renewal, in many cases spiritual revival. Let's go to Joshua chapter 5. Look at... Joshua 5. Israel become careless, as they did over and over again. And God, this time through Joshua, was reminding them once again that they would need God to take this land, just like we need God's Spirit and Christ's sacrifice to qualify to take His kingdom.

It's only 40 years after Moses. They had had manna every day. But it was still difficult for them to stay focused, as they needed to, and as bad as it was, Egypt had been a known commodity.

It's got to be a choice to keep these days. Joshua 5 verse 6 says, The children of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness. To all the people who were men of war, who came out of Egypt, were consumed because they did not obey the voice of the Lord. To whom the Lord swore that He would not let them see the land flowing with milk and honey. Interesting, verse 7, Joshua circumcised their sons, whom he raised up in that place, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised along the way. So even in the wilderness, they weren't following some of the ordinances set up. Verse 9, The Lord said to Joshua, This day I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you, like our sin takes us away from God.

Verse 10, The children of Israel camped at Gilgal, and kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month at twilight on the plains of Jericho. So Israel renewed their covenant, and they got ready to take the Promised Land. Do we have our periods of up and down like Israel? Are we spiritual Christians continually like Christ, or do we go down like Israel and let sin overtake us and change our ways? In Jude 3, we're told to earnestly contend for the faith once delivered. Just like Eusebius was writing about. A lot of people don't contend for the faith once delivered. They change the faith, do their own thing.

If we go back to the Old Testament again, we see a third historical Passover in 2 Chronicles 30. This one, of course, is a time of Hezekiah. It's interesting. In that four or five hundred years, how few times they seem to return to God. It's right after the Assyrian occupation. They'd become careless again.

In 2 Chronicles 30, verse 1, Hezekiah sent to all Israel and Judah, and wrote letters to Ephraim and Manasseh that they should come to the house of the Lord at Jerusalem to keep the Passover of the Lord, the God of Israel. Verse 4, He makes a proclamation through all of Israel, from Beersheba to Dan, from the south to the north, they should come and keep it. Passover to the Lord, God of Israel, at Jerusalem, since they had not done it for a long time in the prescribed manner. They may have had certain forms that they did do, but not in the prescribed manner.

So again, we see after a lull, they've lost the purpose and identity of how much of the ways that God told them to do things. They started changing it themselves, decided other days, other things. This always happens.

Verse 6, The runners went through all Israel and Judah, with letters from the king and his leaders, and spoke, according to the command of the king. Children of Israel returned to the Lord, God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob. Then he will return to the remnant of you who have escaped from the hand of the king of Assyria.

Those people that managed to avoid the captivity, or escape from it, Isaac, I was glad to see those people return. There's room for all of us in his kingdom. Verse 13, Now many people, a very great assembly, gathered at Jerusalem to keep the feast of unleavened bread in the second month.

They had not been consecrated, so they had to keep the second Passover.

And they arose and took away the altars that were in Jerusalem, and they took away the incense altars and cast them in the brook. They threw out the leaven, the sin, the idols into the brook.

It's the time of year that God expects us to be introspective, to look at our spiritual condition, to realign our thinking to God's way of thinking, our attitudes to God's attitude, our relationship to Him and His law. That's the process what these days are for, for our personal spiritual development. And these lessons, those few positive lessons, where they actually did follow God, and so many negative examples where they didn't, in trying to decide for themselves.

Verse 15, they slaughtered the Passover lamb on the fourteenth day of the second month. The priests and the Levites were ashamed. It's like us when we compare ourselves to God's standard. We can find ourselves ashamed as well, a needful of the symbols of the Passover, and the blood of Christ and His broken body to remind us the love that He had for us and what we should do.

Verse 23, the whole assembly agreed to keep the feast another seven days, and they kept it another seven days with gladness. So excited to have this back.

But did they keep that excitement? It says there was great joy in Jerusalem.

But is it just a symbolic thing, or do they keep it? They'd have to say that was probably the best feast ever, like we always talk about. Verse 26 says there was great joy in Jerusalem. There was such great joy for since the time of Solomon and the sum of David.

What made it so great was a revival back to God, understanding what the people were supposed to do.

But it didn't last. It didn't last. Verse 27, it says, The priests, the Levites, arose and blessed the people, and their voice was heard. When you have a renewal, God listens. The spiritual renewal takes place in our lives, and God listens. It continues, And their prayer came up to His holy dwelling place, to heaven. God hears that. He's always wanted Israel to follow Him.

Why had they fallen? Now we read all through the Bible, places listings of sin, and they committed all of them. Proverbs 6, verse 16, tells us the sixth thing that God hates. Proverbs 6, 16 says, These six things the Lord God hates. Yes, seven are an abomination to Him. A proud look. We heard about pride in the sermonette. There's a lot of pride. Pride always creates enmity with God. The lying tongue, which has been so common. Hands that shed innocent blood. A heart that devises wicked imaginations. Feet that be swift and run into mischief. A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among the brethren.

How often have we seen those things happen? Psalm in ancient Israel, very quickly. We've seen them in the modern churches from the first century on. We've seen those type of things. They did what God hate back then. Do we do that today?

So often we've seen those things with some of the people who were once among us.

Thousands of people.

Mr. Armstrong asked me once when I was with my wife, after a group of people had left. He said, Aaron, why are you still here? Because he was pretty hard on me at times. He'd never tell me that. He told other people, that they would tell me, which made me feel good. The only time I heard him say good things about me was when he was praying to God. So at least he was talking to the right person.

But I just told him, I said, Mr. Armstrong, you know, you talk about give and get. So many people don't practice that. Sometimes they start giving, but when you change and start getting, and so many of the people that had risen in the corporation, they served hard to get to those positions. And then they quit serving. Then they started getting. They wanted more. Bigger homes, more money, etc. I heard that and saw that. So I made a promise to myself when he made me his aid that I would never ask him for anything. A promise that I kept. I wish I hadn't in some ways because I'd like to have some time off. The last five years of his life, I had two days off. And we're talking 365-year days. Not weekends, not anything. But it was a cause. And it's what my wife and I did.

But God wants us there.

It was interesting. We see what Israel did. So many times they turned from God.

Verse 14, they took away the altars that were in Jerusalem. They took away the incense altars and cast them in the brook. Like I said, they threw out the leaven. We need to look at those things.

Let's go to 2 Chronicles 5. We see Israel going through the cycle again, believing God, coming back.

They again lost contact. They drifted away. 2 Chronicles 35, we read the story of Josiah, another young king who at age 8 took the throne. Kind of funny, I'm not sure what he said. It's fascinating. So many of the young kings did so much better sometimes than the older kings. And when was it? 2 Chronicles 35, verse 1. Now Josiah kept a Passover to the Lord in Jerusalem. And they slaughtered the Passover lambs on the 14th day of the first month. Why did he do this? We read in chapter 34 that they were cleaning out the temple and they found a book of the law. And in the book of the law, it listed all these blessings and cursings. And the cursings, if you didn't do what God said, Josiah said, Oh my, God's going to curse us. We haven't been doing this. So you ordered him to do it. When you understand something, when you hear it, you've got to change. And Josiah did.

Verse 17, 2 Chronicles 35. The children of Israel who were present kept the Passover at that time and the Feast of Unleavened Bread for seven days. And there had been no Passover kept in Israel like that since the days of Samuel the prophet. Wow! Solomon, David, Samuel. This time we're talking a couple hundred years. Hadn't been a Passover like that. Again, even a greater Passover than the one we've read about in Hezekiah, which has been greater since the days of Solomon. Can only imagine the excitement they had at those feasts when they were turning back to God. But then so quickly, they turned away. But what was so great about the Passover was that the number of people involved, was it the groups, the dinners, the joy of the people? 2 Kings 23, if you turn there, I think answers this. It was a spiritual renewal, which again, happens so rarely in Israel. That's the comparison. It was a time of great renewal, the people of God. No Passover like it since Samuel's day. 2 Kings 23, verse 22, Such a Passover surely never had been since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel or the kings of Judah. But in the eighteenth year of King Josiah, this Passover was held before the Lord in Jerusalem. Moreover, Josiah put away all those who consulted mediums and spirits. Take away the idolaters, the household gods, and the idols, all the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Ochiah the priest found in the house of the Lord. He found the book, and he was excited. They only had scrolls back then. They had to memorize, come on Sabbath, and unroll the scrolls and read them. We have his book. Each of us has our own, probably two or three or four or ten or twelve, or have a whole bookcase full of books, Bibles, and other books about it. Are we excited of what we have and what we read in the same way that they were? If we're not careful, we can become like Israel and be Christians at times of revival and do away with God the rest of the time. We can't afford that. We can be so easily broken by sin, so easily pulled away. And oftentimes, having men tell us things that sound good to our ears, just like Satan deceiving Eve, it's good for food. It'll make you wise. We can buy into those arguments. That preacher, he said, well, for 200 years they were doing Sunday, so it was just an acknowledgement of what the Christians were doing. But it wasn't. It was easy if that's what you want to do. It kind of pushed the argument to the side for people who wanted it. But do you want the truth?

Ezekiel 18. This is one of the most encouraging scriptures in the Bible in some ways to me. Ezekiel 18, verse 21, says, If a wicked man turns from all of his sins which he committed, He repents, not as you were, and does what is lawful and right, He shall surely live and not die. Passover stops death. If we turn from the sins that we've committed. Verse 22, None of his transgressions which he has committed shall be remembered against him. Because of the righteousness which he has done, he shall live. God forgets our sins. If we turn to him, it's often harder for us to forgive ourselves. Our carelessness may have taken us away for a time, but God can restore us as long as we desire that relationship with him to eliminate the leaven in our lives, to accept that Passover sacrifice. He's always there and always true to us. It's our fault, the selfishness and neglect, that we turn from him. It's never his fault, what he does. We need those sacrifices, the sacrifice of Christ and the forgiveness of God, to be restored with our relationship to God the Father and to his Son. Verse 23, God says, Do I have any pleasure at all that the wicked should die? And not that he should turn from his way and live?

Where are all his children? A lot of children in this congregation. It's wonderful to see the children. All the people of the earth are his children. None of us want our children to turn from God. We want them to succeed in life. We want them to be blessed. God wants that same thing for us. He wants to have a relationship with us. That's why he called us. He wanted us to have a good relationship with him, a spiritual relationship.

Our past is behind, and our future is bright so we can produce the fruits of the Spirit, the Spirit that he gives us. Do we take the precious truth for granted? Do we hold it dear to us, or do we become careless? This is the time of year we need to rededicate ourselves to maintain this attitude for the whole year, chuck our personal pride at the door, and turn to him.

We must be careful not to take the truth of God for granted like Israel did, and just forget it. The fifth Passover mentioned is the one in Ezra. Turn to Ezra 6, verse 14. Ezra, of course, was the restoration of the temple. They had been taken captive.

Babylon had taken Jerusalem, burnt the temple down in the city, and they began to rebuild it, as we know. Verse 14 of Ezra 6, the elders of Judah, the elders of the Jews built, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai and the prophet Zechariah, the son of Edo. They built and finished it according to the commandment of God of Israel, according to the commandment of Cyrus, Darius, and Artaxerxes, the king of Persia. As it was prophesied in Isaiah that Cyrus would make a decree, they came back, and they were building it, and they were celebrating. Let's go down to verse 19. The descendants of the captivity kept the Passover on the 14th day of the first month.

It seems like the Passover was always the time God kind of brought them back, that rejuvenation, and it is the same for us. In the context of spiritual renewal, once again, we find this Holy Day season mentioned. Verse 20, The priests and the Levites had purified themselves. All of them were ritually claimed. They slaughtered the Passover lands for the descendants of captivity, for the brethren, the priests, and for themselves. Then the children of Israel, who had returned from the captivity, ate together with all who had separated themselves from the filth of the nations of the land in order to seek the Lord God of Israel. And they kept the feast on the Levite bread seven days with joy, for the Lord made them joyful and turned the heart of the king of Assyria toward them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. When you turn to Him, He strengthens you. He helps you. What is the house of God today? Is it not the church, the body of Christ? Turn to Philippians 3, if you would. Through this examination process, we may find ourselves, and I hope we do, wanting and needing the sacrifice of Christ and the forgiveness of sin that only comes through Him, and our commitment to try to live a better life this year than we did last year, a more sin-free life like His. Philippians 3, verse 14, Paul says, He pushed himself probably harder than anybody else when you read the book of Acts and his epistles, what he went through. He did push for that prize. So what does he say in verse 15? As many as be perfect, be thus minded. And if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this to you. You've got a wrong attitude. Change it. Change it. Nevertheless, where to we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us mind the same thing. Verse 17, Notice the ones who do it right.

Verse 18, A lot of preachers use that to say that the law was bad, and so it's just Christ. And yeah, we're saved by grace. But what is the theme of those verses there when it talks about the cross? Verse 16, He wants us to walk as Christ walked. We're not enemies of the cross because we keep the law. We walk as Christ walked. People try to make the say you're a legalist because you try to walk as Christ walked. All you need is Christ. No, you need the whole law of God.

Certainly, it's only through His death and grace that we're saved. But we show our love through obedience. Christ, that's how He showed His love. He did everything the Father said.

Philippians 2, verse 8, just a page back where you are. Christ, being found in the fashion as a man, humbled Himself, became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Paul uses the cross to show the bridge to eternal life. It's through Christ. But it's about walking as Christ walked. It's about doing as Christ did. It's about keeping the day as Christ kept.

It's not about just saying His name, putting a cross on your chest or walking by some idol and doing rose reason, whatever else.

But it's about having Christ's conduct. It's about His obedience, Christ's way of life, not just a symbol. Turn to Hebrews 12, if you would.

We are human. We are weak at times. We need to focus and determine our course before God.

He wants us to examine ourselves.

Of course, after listing all the things that people went through in the Old Testament, verse 1 of Hebrews 12, we tell those we're compass about with all these witnesses. And we have to run patiently the race before us. How? Verse 2, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And He does. Because He died, we can be with Him. For the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, despising the shame, and has set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Again, He lived and walked the way God wants us to walk. Verse 4, You have not yet resisted under blood, striving against sin. And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as children. My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you rebuked of Him. We've all corrected our children. We've all been corrected. We don't do it to harm them, we do it to help them. God corrects us to help us.

It's not a pleasure. Children, you never understand that. It's going to hurt me more than it does you. It doesn't seem to fit until you become a parent. Then you find out what it means.

Verse 12, Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees. We are feeble without God. Without pleading for His intervention. Make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. As we heard in the sermon, that to pursue peace with people, to get rid of the pride. Why? Verse 15, Because looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springs up and cause trouble. Many roots of bitterness have sprung up for two thousand years in the Church of God, and many have become defiled. Many have given up, just like ancient Israel. Try something else, their own way. Verse 16, Lest there be any fornicator, or a profane person like Esau, who for a morsel of food sold his birthright. And afterwards he wanted to inherit the blessing, but he was rejected. He found no place for repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears.

It's interesting, that word, diligently. In the Living Bible it says Esau was careless about God. It says, Be warned, and not be careless about God as Esau was. Can we grow careless? Do we lose our first love? It should still be exciting for us. Every year it should be just as exciting, and more so, than the last year. But we learn a little more.

It's interesting, that little boy that wanted to listen to the violinist playing in the subway. He thought he was good. So many people walked by. What was interesting is, the man playing the violin, had played the night before in Carnegie Hall. Five hundred dollars a seat. And he was playing in the subway just to see what people would do, and they just walked by. They didn't recognize who he was. They didn't recognize how good he played. And here for free, the only one who saw it was the little boy. He thought it was exciting. Do we miss opportunities? Do we not see things? God does things in our life that we probably don't notice. It would be interesting when we are resurrected, and we're with Him, how many things He can tell us He did for us that we didn't even know. I think He helps us much more than we often think. We're given these examples so we can learn from the good and from the bad. 1 Corinthians 10, He says the same thing. Verse 5, 1 Corinthians 10, talking about ancient Israel. And with most of them, God was not pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. We have to make sure our bodies aren't scattered in the spiritual wilderness of this world.

Verse 6, these things are examples to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they lusted. They wanted the way of the world. They had it, and they were taken captive because of it. Verse 7, Do not become idolatchers as some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. Verse 8, Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and one day 23,000 fell. Nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them tempted. Nor complain, as some of them complained continuously and were destroyed. All these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the age have come. The Greek word for admonition is newthesia. It means to take notice or to take warning. We can look back at the examples of ancient Israel and even examples in the recent church of people who have left. And we can see those negative things they did and try to avoid them. But we can also see the positive things when they had a revival and they were so glad and joyous when it came back to the front and they found the book of the law and they started practicing, even though it was short-lived. It's always associated with Passover, these positive things and the days of Unleavened Bread, the spiritual revival. God wants us to have that revival every day. We focus on it in these days, but it's something that should last the full year, until the next Passover, that renewal. When did God listen to them? When they were obeying Him? When they cried out to Him? When they were having that revival? The problem with Israel is they didn't live the way of life that God directed, except on few occasions. There's never anything wrong with the law as a way of life. It produced a proper way of life. Like I've often asked a baptism, would you keep the law if there was no salvation at the end? It's the right way of life to have happiness. The promise that God gives us beyond that, but it's the way He directs us. And it's being out of step without law is what makes us sin. We have these days to make our own resolutions, our New Year's resolutions, to rededicate ourselves in the way we live, in the way we treat each other, the way we build our relationship with God and with man, to be in step with Him. If we don't, then we make ourselves the enemies of God instead of the friend of God, and in that case, enemies of the cross. If we live properly, we are friends of God, and we can cross that bridge that Paul represented when he talked of the cross to go into the kingdom of God. Only five Passovers in 500 years in the Old Testament. Will we be here next year? I pray that we're here, bigger and stronger than ever. There's not much time left. If you watch the news at all, you can see God's hand moving the dominoes around the world to fulfill prophecy. How many years is it? We don't know. But we need to be ready. We need to be Christ-like Christians. We need to be walking the walk He walked, living the way He lived, always walking with God, and recognizing when Christ is playing that violin, that we stop and listen.